Let’s face it, in the past the IT infrastructure options for your small business have been limited. You were constrained by the level of risk you would be willing to take on and by the server capacity your budget could afford.

Luckily now times have changed, and advancements in technology can mean a big win for your small business. Imagine having access to the products and services that were originally only available to large enterprises with big budgets? Well now you can. There is no need to settle for sub-standard IT solutions.

Here are some of the benefits available to you:

In today’s world, having consistent and fast connectivity is essential for the smooth day-to-day operations of any business.

It enables so many things – from being able to engage with your clients and partners through video conferencing channels, using cloud storage solutions to setting automated offsite online backups to guarantee the security of your data.

Improvements in infrastructure now mean that you can get a fibre connection to your small business premises at an affordable rate. Only 3 years ago this would have been outrageously expensive and price prohibitive.

Now is the best time to ensure your business is accessing the highest level of connectivity available.

Utilising video conferencing can help you take your business communications to the next level. Gone are the days of having a huge expensive Polycom unit on your meeting table, and a member of your IT team needing a PHD just to operate it.

You no longer require the services of a specialist company to bind together your telephone lines to create enough bandwidth for a video call. There is also no need to try the complicated IP calling that would draw massive resources from your bandwidth.

Your small business IT budget can be improved now that you do not need to call on expensive specialists to physically visit your premises.

You can take advantage of the new world of video conferencing, where your infrastructure is set up so that you can just click the “call now” button on your Skype. You can utilise integrated systems like Skype For Business which can be linked to Outlook via Office 365 and truly open up your business communications and productivity.

As your small business grows, communication can suffer. Team members used to talking face-to-face to a few other people, may quickly find themselves having to communicate across states, or continents. However, having a team collaboration tool can mean increased productivity across the board, as well as happier employees!

According to a whitepaper by business communications company Fonality (fonality.com) and Webtorials (webtorials.com), “most workers waste an average of 74 minutes per day trying to contact partners or customers.”

Previously SharePoint was the best product, but it was necessary to host it on your business server. The other option was to have an intranet, but it was extremely cost-prohibitive in the past due to the resources required to properly set everything up and keep it maintained.

Often by the time the intranet was designed, built, and hosted, it would be out-of-date or lack new core functionality so many team members would not use it.

So that you don’t get sidelined from important work such as driving revenue for your business, it is important to keep your IT stress as low as possible. One of the ways you can do this is to take advantage of the current technologies to change the way you store data.

A large enterprise IT environment usually has multiple servers to minimise risk, but in a small business there has traditionally been only one server. This presents a substantial danger to the small business as a “single point of failure” could impact all the business data.

By utilising cloud solutions, your small business IT doesn’t have to endure that level of risk. Keeping your data in a secure cloud environment eliminates the pressure of the single point of failure – and you can save some money too!

In the past, enterprise backup environments have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Larger businesses endured huge expenses for planning, set up and maintenance to ensure their data was secured in a locked environment – often with air-conditioning and constant monitoring.

Small businesses were unable to protect their data backups as effectively, relying on tapes or disks. These backups were then either stored in the office, or taken to an off-site location that they hoped would be safe.

Now, backups to the cloud are proving to save businesses a fortune. The data backups can be automated giving you peace-of-mind knowing less human hands are involved in the process. For example, our small business customers can run their backups and have that server up and running in the cloud in 10 minutes.

Imagine if you had an IT expert that manages the security of your computers, performs maintenance and keep your IT systems optimised. Think of the disruptions that would be minimised and the reduced risk for your business.

Having the latest cloud technology, alongside managed services, your manual tasks can all be automated for a simple monthly fee per user. You can make enormous resource savings by eliminating the need for an internal IT team.

Still not sure? Take our Small Business Modern Workplace Assessment and see how modern your workplace really is!